A television production studio includes a number of different television devices connected to a number of different signal routers. Each signal router is interconnected to other signal routers to deliver an asset from one television device to another. An asset may be any information that is part of a television production studio. A television device can be, for example, a video server, a graphics device or any television device. Examples of assets include television programming, graphics that may be incorporated into a television broadcast, etc. Each television device having an asset is accessible by at least one signal router. The basic infrastructure of a television production studio includes the ability to route a signal containing the asset from one television device to another. Further, a television studio incorporates many different television technologies, such as, for example, standard definition (SD), high definition (HD), digital, analog, etc. Because of these different technologies, a television studio typically includes many different routers. Typically, there may be one or two different types of routers, with a number of each router type being commonly controlled. This arrangement leads to an infrastructure having multiple router control systems with some number of routers being controlled by each control system.
Further, in some television studios, the individual routers are all interconnected, resulting in a haphazard connection topology that requires each router to have multiple connections to each of the other routers. This results in excessive routing complexity. Further complicating this infrastructure is that operations and maintenance personnel must keep track of which television device is associated with which router. As a result, a typical television studio has become significantly complex and difficult to maintain.
One possible solution is to replace the existing routers with a single router. Unfortunately, for a large studio, such a router would be extremely complex and costly to implement. Further, most television studios have a significant capital investment in existing infrastructure, and it would be preferable to fully amortize that investment. Also, a single router creates a single point of failure, which can be extremely costly to make failsafe. Further, a single large router capable of supporting a large studio infrastructure would be inefficient since many of the connections between devices would never be required.
Therefore, it would be desirable to improve the routing efficiency of an existing television studio, while allowing the use of existing routing equipment.